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The Samajwadi Party primarily based in Uttar Pradesh State. It has contested Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections around the country, though its successes have been mainly in Uttar Pradesh. In the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, the Samajwadi Party gained 7 seats, making it the third largest party in the state. When its candidate won the by-election of Lanji (Balaghat) in 2007, its total tally reached 8.

In the 16th Lok Sabha, it currently has only 4 members(Mulayam Singh Yadav won from 2 seats and resigned from Mainpuri).

In 2005, former Karnataka Chief Minister Bangarappa resigned from the BJP to join the Samajwadi Party. He successfully held his Lok Sabha seat (representing Shimoga) on the Samajwadi ticket.

In the 2007 Uttar Pradesh legislative election, the SP won only 96 seats as compared to 146 in the previous election. As a result, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had to resign, with his rival Mayawati, leader of the BSP (which won a majority of 207 seats), sworn in as the Chief Minister.

In the 2012 legislative assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh, SP registered a landslide victory with a clear majority in the House, thus enabling it to form the Government in the state. This was expected to be the fifth term of Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister of state, but he surprised everyone by selecting his son, Akhilesh Yadav, to be the new chief minister (the youngest ever). It became official on March 15. It was also the first time that SP was head of the UP government for a full term of 5 years.[4][5]

The Samajwadi Party still supports the central UPA Government from outside at the national level. It is currently the third-largest party in parliament.[7] In general elections in 2009, it won 23 seats, behind the Indian National Congress with 206 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party with 116 seats.

In April 2014, Save Family Foundation encouraged voters to support Samajwadi Party or vote none of the above because Samajwadi Party has stated that it opposes the alleged misuse of gender bias laws.[8]

The clashes between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India in August - September 2013, resulted in at least 49 deaths and injured 93 and left more than 50,000 displaced.[9][10][11][12] By 17 September, the curfew was lifted from all riot affected areas and the army was also withdrawn.[13]

The riot has been described as "the worst violence in Uttar Pradesh in recent history," with the army, as a result, being deployed in the state for the first time in last 20 years.[14]Supreme Court of India while hearing petitions in relation to the riots held the Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party, prima facie guilty of negligence in preventing the violence and ordered it to immediately arrest all those accused irrespective of their political affiliation. Court also blamed the Central government for its failure to provide intelligence inputs to the Samajwadi Party-ruled state government in time to help sound alerts.[15]